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Updated: May 15, 2025
The good lady had ascended the companion behind the American, who still remained at the spot where he had first made his appearance, and was just then adjusting his braces; and almost at the same instant that her dulcet accents reached the ears of those on deck she burst upon them, as it were by storm, carrying Mr Lathrope along with her, still en deshabille, it is true, as regarded his coat and waistcoat, but fortunately now with his trousers, or as he called them "pants," properly arranged.
"I guess, mister, you jest come in time," said the poor fellow with a sickly smile, as they pulled away the case and wash-stand, and helped him into a sitting position on the bunk, "another minnit and it would have been all up with Z Lathrope, Esquire!" And he gasped for breath, putting his hand to his left side, as if feeling pain there.
As for Mr Zachariah Lathrope, his luggage consisted chiefly of an old fur cloak, in addition to the clothes he stood up in, besides his inseparable "six shooter" and a rifle which latter he stated had been given to his grandfather by the celebrated Colonel Crockett of "coon" notoriety, and was "a powerful shootin' iron."
"Pray, excuse me," interrupted Mr Meldrum, "I'll speak to you when I come down again; I must join the captain now, as you see;" and he hurried to the companion-way, Captain Dinks standing aside and motioning to him to go up first. "Say, Cap " called out Mr Lathrope, not to be baffled. "Can't stop now," curtly replied Captain Dinks; and he, too, disappeared in the rear of Mr Meldrum.
Still, the two sections of the hull did not immediately separate, the seas apparently losing their force and reserving their powers after delivering such a telling blow. "I guess, mister," said Mr Lathrope, who took the catastrophe as coolly as he did every other incident of his life apparently, "this air smash is a kinder sort o' notice to quit, hey?" But Mr Meldrum made no reply.
His chief dish was a well-seasoned "Irish stew," compounded of salt beef and preserved vegetables, which seemed on that cold evening a perfect chef-d'oeuvre, and would, as Mr Lathrope "guessed" after a third helping, have "made a man leave his grandmother for his wife's mother's aunt, any day!"
"We've got some green-stuff," said Mr Lathrope whom the question of eating, or rather what to get to eat, seemed more materially to affect than anyone else "and I ain't a-going to gainsay but what it's fust- rate green-stuff of the sort, and right down prime filling stuff too; but, mister, we ain't all ben brought up to live on sauerkraut, like them German immigrants as I've seed land at Castle Garden, New York.
Amongst other things tried was music, one of the crew having made a banjo, the strings of which were twisted from the smaller intestines of the last sea-elephant they had killed; and by the aid of this instrument harmonic meetings were organised in the evenings, Mr Lathrope developing an almost forgotten talent he possessed, and coming out as a comic singer.
"Jist so, the murtherin' villins!" ejaculated Mr McCarthy. Mr Lathrope at that moment came up from the cuddy. "Whar's that sanctimonious cuss of a steward!" inquired he. "I've shouted clean through the hull ship, and I'm durned ef I ken find him to git some grub; for I feels kinder peckish arter that there muss. I guess the critter has sloped with them t'other skunks!"
The weather keeping calm and bright, and the wind lulling instead of increasing in force as the sun rose in the heavens, the task was at length satisfactorily accomplished. It was not done, however, until after two hours of continuous labour, in which all hands were engaged, even Mr Lathrope assisting as well as his still injured arm would permit.
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